Unravelling. Elizabeth Norris

didn’t come out the way I wanted it to, I mean.” He pauses to chew on the corner of his bottom lip. “Look, I saw it happen. I came over to check on you, then when other people came over too, I backed away and gave them room.”

      “But—”

      He shakes his head. “No, I’m serious. You had a traumatic experience. I was the first person you saw when you opened your eyes.”

      I nod, because Alex has already said as much, and, well, it does make sense. The problem is that deep inside my chest, that explanation feels wooden—hollow. And even Ben’s speech sounds rehearsed. I don’t hear any conviction behind his words.

      “Why were you at the beach?”

      He smirks. “What, I can’t go to the beach? It was summer.”

      He starts to walk away, like our conversation is over.

      “I don’t believe that,” I say. It comes out quietly, but I know he hears me because he stops. Keeping his back to me, he just waits, and I get the impression from his posture that he’s holding his breath. I believe he brought me back. I don’t know how yet, but I will. I do know that right now, I believe I’m here—I’m alive—because of him. The sense of gratitude makes me dizzy and light-headed, like I need to take a deep breath.

      And apparently all rational thought leaves my head and my body takes on a life of its own, because I take a step toward him, reaching out, until the tips of two of my fingers brush against his. I don’t know what I’m doing, it’s been forever since I just held hands with anyone, and my hand seems to tingle with the touch.

      “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Ben says. His voice is quiet and cracks slightly at the end, as if he feels helpless, as if he wishes he had some kind of answer. And that is almost enough to make me back off and leave Ben Michaels and whatever freaky shit he’s into alone. Only I’m tired of being hollow inside.

      You’ll still be thinking you haven’t really done anything.

      I want to feel something. I want to feel . . . alive.

      And whatever he says, Ben Michaels is the reason I have the chance.

      “I just . . . Thank you.” And as I say it, I squeeze his hand, the level of pressure directly correlating to the depth of emotion I’m feeling—that is to say, it had to feel a little like his bones might start cracking. “Thank you.”

      I let go and leave him standing there. No matter how much I want to look back, I don’t.

      hen I get home after Alex and I drop Jared off at polo, my mother is awake. And baking.

      This happens sometimes, which almost makes everything worse. “Almost” because nothing beats the smell of warm bread.

      “J-baby!” she calls when I open the door. “In here!”

      “Here” is the kitchen. She’s showered and is wearing a bright green velour jumpsuit and more eyeliner than she needs. And she’s surrounded by possibly eight hundred muffins— blueberry, banana nut, bran, cornbread, chocolate chip—they’re everywhere. Literally. They cover every surface in our kitchen. As does flour.

      My flip-flops stick to the linoleum floor. Egg, vanilla extract, butter—I’m not sure what I’m sticking to, but I know I’m annoyed. We’ll be eating muffins for every meal until we have to throw them out, and I’ll be the one cleaning this up.

      “How was school, baby?” she asks, turning to give me a smile and a banana nut muffin. “Here, have one, they’re fabulous. I used your great-grandmother’s recipe, and I got it just right. They couldn’t be more perfect!”

      “School’s fine,” I mutter as I take a bite. She’s right. She did get Nana’s recipe perfect, which is saying something. My dad’s grandmother owned a bakery.

      “Jared said your schedule was all wrong. He told me they gave you classes that were easier than his and that you’d need to get it changed. Do you have any classes with Kate? Oh, here—try this one too. I’m not sure why it isn’t quite right, but they just didn’t rise as well as the first batch. They taste fine, though.” She hands me a flat cornbread muffin. She’s forgotten that I don’t like cornbread. Just like she’s forgotten that Kate and I aren’t friends anymore.

      “I’m getting my schedule fixed,” I say, taking a bite of it anyway. “I filed paperwork with Elksen and now I’m just waiting for him to get around to it.”

      “How is it?” she asks, nodding to the flat muffin. “I’m just not sure why they didn’t rise. I could throw them out, I guess, but that would be so wasteful. I just don’t know what happened. All the other batches look great.”

      What happened is she messed up the baking soda or baking powder, but I’m not about to point that out. “It tastes great, Mom.”

      She beams, and her dimples—the same as Jared’s—peek out of her cheeks. Even her nose scrunches up with her smile. She looks ten years younger than she did a few days ago. I can’t think of the last time she smiled like that.

      I want to say something else, prolong this moment, but words fail me. And it doesn’t matter. She’s already turned back to the mixing bowl and begun a long explanation of why she decided to also make a batch of raspberry muffins and how they’ll be different from the blueberry ones, even though she’s using the same baseline recipe. I text Alex, Struz, and even Jared’s water polo coach to let them know there’ll be muffins on us for anyone who’s interested.

      And then I just listen to her talk.

      It’s not that I’m particularly interested in the art of baking muffins or that I don’t have a ton of other things I should do. I just love how animated she looks—so opposite of yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

      I have a second chance to fix all this. To try harder.

      My mother offers me a spoonful of batter, but I shake my head. The problem with days like this? They’re just enough to remind me what I’m missing. I don’t have a mother I can talk to. I will never be able to tell my mother about Ben Michaels, that he saved me somehow, that he’s denying it.

      So after she finishes the raspberry batch, I grab the Clorox wipes and head to her bedroom. I throw the curtains wide, roll up the shade, and open the windows as far as I can. Once I’ve got some air in there and the ceiling fan is attempting to circulate it, I start picking up the clothes on the floor.

      And when I’m rearranging the picture frames—putting the picture of Jared and me at Disneyland after we rode Space Mountain back on her nightstand—I see it.

      My dad’s laptop, plugged in, still turned on, and resting on the bed, buried in her bedspread. He has his own room. My parents stopped sleeping together forever ago. She needed her own space for peace and quiet, and frankly, if they had to stay in the same room, he never would have come home from the office.

      Which means he spent the morning in here—with her.

      I sit down on the bed and pull the computer into my lap, open it up, and log in. His password would be complex. To anyone else—even someone who knows binary code. But I can hack anything my dad has passworded. I know him too well.

      As it loads, I hear my mother’s singing underneath the thrum of the fan, and I can’t help wondering if this is why she’s awake and in a good mood. I know she’ll come down from this high— she always does. But could it be this easy to pick her back up again?

      Scrolling through my father’s history, I open up the last files he viewed. One is a performance eval for Barclay, T. I don’t know the name, so he must be a new analyst. At first it appears to be anything but average. In fact, the first part is straight-up glowing. A hundred percent